Sand and Suffering
by Nova-chan
Summary: The gang goes to the beach! All canon couples plus Mark and a merman. This time, Mark finds himself on a nude beach, Angel has onetoomany daiquiris, Collins gets buried in the sand, Maureen wins a contest!
1. Paradise in progress

NoV: Ahaha! NoV's Rent lives on!! (really fast voice) NoV's Rent is in no way affiliated with actual Rent and/or Jonathan Larson and/or anything that actually matters. NoV does not own Rent and never will. (End fast voice) Well, hope you all really enjoy, I've got lots of fun ideas for this story!

PS/Little Note: Roger drives because he's the only one I trust with the job, and the only one I've ever seen driving.

Warning: This story contains some real life events and those involved must oblige me creative license with them, thank you!

--

Quote of the day:

"Artificial intelligence is never a match for natural stupidity."

-unknown

--

A plum van rolled down the highway, passing slower vehicles every so often. At the helm was Roger Davis, trying to ignore the loud rumbling talking of the other passengers and still hold a conversation with Mimi. Angel and Collins sat in the middle row, very tempted to snack on the things kept in the cooler between them. Maureen and Joanne held hands in the backseat, next to Mark who stared blankly out the window for most of the trip. This van didn't belong to any of them. When it had come down to finding a vehicle for this trip, they had asked a neighbor, NoV, if she would be able to help them. NoV had then volunteered her friend's mother's van for their use. Unfortunately due to qualifying circumstances, NoV was unable to go on the trip. (pout)

Angel had been the one who insisted on the trip. Margo Fletcher, that untouchable goddess hat designer, was giving her next lecture at Coconut Beach, some hundreds of miles away from New York where the group had unfortunately missed the previous lecture. As they had learned, the incredible hulk couldn't keep Angel from seeing Margo's lecture as soon as was mortally possible. On the other hand, the beach wasn't a particularly horrible place to visit, so objections were not given.

Roger expertly pulled the van into a spot in front of the motel they were staying at (thanks to NoV's rich daddy, we suppose), and the gang was ready to jump out and stretch their legs. Collins was a bit too eager to get out of the hot, arid van and onto the beach to frolic. As he stepped out, his foot got wrapped through the seatbelt, therefore causing the poor man to pitch forward and land on his face on the concrete.

"Woah, Collins," Mark said through his camera. "That'll make a good outtake."

Collins gave him the finger just as Angel jumped down to help him up. "Are you okay?" she asked, fondling him and wiping dirt and rocks off of him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Collins replied, despite his stinging knee. "I could probably use a band-aid." He shrugged.

"They probably have some at the front desk," Maureen said, quickly. "Let's go check in so we can get down to the beach!"

--

Half an hour later, the beach was filled with all sorts of people. There were old people who never moved from under their giant, rented umbrellas. There were middle-aged people with their excited kids running all over, making mischief. There were lots of teenagers with their stereos, bikinis and tans. One group of people, however, was impossible to miss. This group, of course, was that lovable group of bohemians that had just checked into the hotel.

They had managed to put their things away and get changed rather quickly, as they were all very anxious to start having fun. Roger wore a pair of red trunks with a blue stripe down one side, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of sandals. He carried the cooler. Mimi wore a scanty black bikini with drawstrings galore, which Roger curiously kept pulling at. Collins looked like a pro, wearing a broad-rimmed hat with a string under his chin, sunglasses, a white t-shirt, green trunks and sandals. Angel had chosen her blond wig for the beach. She wore a pink bikini top. There was no question as to whether she wore the bottoms as well, but they were concealed under a modest yellow terry cloth skirt. She also wore high heels. Maureen wore a red two-piece suit that did a good job of showing off her bustiness, along with movie star-style sunglasses. Joanne wore her favorite green one-piece with denim shorts over it and green sandals to match. Mark wore simple blue trunks, a black t-shirt and sandals.

The group put up their umbrella and set their towels and cooler near it. "Who wants to go swimming?" Maureen cried, eager to run off into the surf.

"Mmm, I want to tan a little first," Mimi replied, laying out on her towel.

"Uh, me too," Roger added, putting his towel next to hers.

Mark sat nervously under the umbrella and said, "I want to wait until my sunblock gets absorbed into my skin a little more…."

"Yeah, Mark, we wouldn't want you to lose your milky white glow," Collins joked.

"Are you coming to swim, Collins?" Angel wondered, kicking off her heels daintily.

"I'll go get a float and I'll be right with you, okay?" he answered. He leaned over to give her a kiss and then trooped toward the rental shack.

"Coming Pooklit?" Maureen asked Joanne.

Joanne weighed the alternatives and shook her head yes. "All right, should be fun!"

Maureen, Joanne and Angel giddily dashed down the beach and into the water. They had to slowly adjust to the cold water, but soon were up to their waists enjoying themselves. A few minutes later, Collins joined them on a flat, red float and got splashed mercilessly by them.

Maureen was laughing so hard that she hardly felt the light, feathery touch on her abdomen. Soon, however, she couldn't ignore it as it grew sore and stung severely. "Ow, owie, owie!" she cried, rubbing the spot.

"What is it?" Joanne asked, mildly worried.

Maureen looked at the red bump right below her bikini top. "I think I got stung by a jellyfish," she whined. She seethed, saying, "Arrgh!! The salt water hurts it!"

"Let's go up to the room and get some ice," Joanne suggested, taking her by the arm.

"I heard that shaving cream will make it better," Angel said, helpfully. "You can use mine, it's in my pink bag." Giving it a second thought, she quickly said, "I only need the shaving cream for my legs."

Joanne gave her a strange look. "We can just use mine," she said, then added, "Which I also use just for my legs." She eased Maureen up the shore and onto the beach.

By the time they got to the umbrella, Maureen was quite enjoying the attention she was getting. When Roger, Mimi and Mark looked up at her in confusion, she said, "I got stung by a jellyfish." She pointed to the spot. "It looks like a third nipple." Everyone simply nodded at her.

Joanne continued to push her toward the hotel. "Let's go, Maureen," she said.

--

Back in the water, Angel had laid her head on Collins' float and was hovering around in the water. "Are you having fun?" she wondered, cutely.

"I'm spending time with you," he replied. "How could I not have fun?"

Angel smiled. "Hang on right there," she instructed. "I'm gonna go see if Mimi wants to come swimming now, okay?"

"Okay," Collins agreed. He folded his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes, enjoying the serenity of the ocean waves.

--

Angel talked Mimi into coming out to swim. Before she got up to leave, Mimi wondered, "Hey, Roger? Will you go get us some drinks? I think there's a bar near the pool."

"Sure," Roger agreed. "Want anything, Mark?"

"Nah," Mark said. "Alcohol actually increases your risk of sun exposure."

"Okay," Roger said in a "You're completely out of your mind," way. He hiked up the beach back toward the hotel.

Mark lay down on his towel, having pinpointed a spot under the umbrella where no sunlight would touch him or his towel or his water bottle. He closed his eyes and began to drift off to sleep. A gust of wind blew by, and unbeknownst to Mark, whisked the umbrella away.

--

NoV: Haha! Chapter one is complete.

Next time (!): Something falls on Roger's head, Collins goes missing, Mimi gets trapped in seaweed, and Joanne gets bitten by a shark!


	2. Alcohol can be dangerous

NoV: And now, for the second chapter. Heehee. I don't own _Jaws_.

--

Quote of the day:

"The more you eat, the more you know."

-Ari-san .

--

Maureen didn't subscribe to the shaving cream theory and merely put an ice cube on the sting to soothe it. Joanne stood over her as she wallowed on the bed, whining about her pain. "I'm dying," Maureen whimpered.

"You got stung by a jellyfish," Joanne reminded her. "I think you'll live."

"My head hurts," Maureen mentioned. "I don't want to go back to the beach." She began leafing through the hotel brochure. Seeing something that caught her interest, she said, "Oh, pookie! They're feeding the baby sharks in the lobby in ten minutes! Can we go watch?"

Joanne shrugged. "Why not?" she replied.

--

Roger went up to the bar and leaned onto it, relaying his drink order. He stood quietly watching the beach bum bartender mixing his drinks. Roger looked back toward the beach where Mimi and Angel were just starting to get into the surf. Mimi's teeny bikini was nearly invisible from that distance.

Interrupted from his thoughts by an unnerving creaking sound, Roger looked around in confusion, and couldn't find the source of the noise. That is, until it crashed down on his head. The wooden rim around the roof of the bar was heavily laden with shelves of all different kinds of liquors and flavors. The least sturdy of these shelves lost its hold and fell directly on top of Roger, who fell down immediately under the pressure. Moments later, the bartender had hopped the bar and was at his side, yelling, "Dude! Dude, are you okay? Want me to call an ambulance?"

Roger came to his senses and looked around. He was lying on his back on the sand, broken bottles all around and a wooden shelf on his chest. He pushed the shelf away and tried to sit up, his head exploding into pain. "Ahhh…..shit," he cursed, holding his throbbing head.

"Aw, man," the bartender lamented. "I knew I shouldn't have held that shelf up with thumb tacks!"

Roger wanted to give the guy a piece of his mind, or at least an incredulous look, but that would cause too much pain to shoot across his head. Instead, he attempted to stand without crunching any of the glass under his feet. The pain subsided considerably when he stood up straight, so Roger got to give his incredulous look. He then began to walk toward the umbrella, which strangely he could no longer find.

"Dude, don't you want your drinks?" the bartender called after him.

--

Mimi felt the chilly ocean water run over her feet and shuddered. "Ooh, it's so cold!" she cried.

"Do you want to get a float like Collins?" Angel wondered, already up to her knees in the water.

"Where is Collins?" Mimi asked. She put a hand to her forehead to aid her in looking out across the waves. She didn't see Collins or his red float.

Angel began to look also. "I don't know," she said. She scanned the water. "He was right there a minute ago." She pointed to a spot where she thought he had been.

"Maybe he got out of the water," Mimi suggested. "Maybe he was thirsty or had to go."

Angel shrugged. "We would have seen him though, wouldn't we?"

Mimi looked back up the beach, not seeing Collins. "Yeah, you're right."

"Collins!" Angel called out in every direction. She began to worry, not getting any response.

--

Collins sat up on the float. He wondered what was taking Angel and Mimi so long. He looked toward the shore to see what they were doing. He panicked when he realized that there _was_ no shore. Collins looked in every direction, but only saw ocean. He pulled his feet up onto the float, images from _Jaws_ assaulting his mind. "Oh, god," he said. He started to paddle toward the land, but soon realized that he had no idea which way the land was.

"Help," he whispered.

--

Roger found Mark at last, perplexed that the cameraman was actually laying out on the beach without the umbrella. He sat on his towel and grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler.

A few minutes later, Mimi and Angel came running up to them. Angel looked about ready to cry when she said, "Collins is gone!"

"Huh?" Roger wondered.

"He was out there on the float, and now we can't find him," Mimi explained.

"Ah, he's probably back in the room or at the pool or something," Roger said, rubbing his head. "You probably just missed each other."

Mimi gestured to Mark, asleep, his exposed skin pinking. "What's with Mark?"

"Guess he finally decided to live a little," Roger shrugged. "Maybe he saw a beach bunny he wants to chat up once he gets a little tan."

"What if Collins drowned?" Angel cried, clinging to Mimi in despair.

"No, no," Mimi said, comfortingly. "If he had drowned, we would have found the float, right Roger?" She said the last two words with a subtle tone, which prompted Roger to agree with her.

"Yeah, why don't you go check the pool and the room," Roger suggested.

"Yeah, and I'll wade out in the water a little way and see if I can see him from there," Mimi said.

Angel nodded. "Okay," she said, hiking toward the hotel.

"I'll go with you," Roger said to Mimi.

"What about Mark?" Mimi asked.

"We'll leave him here in case Collins comes back to the beach," Roger replied.

"Hey, where's my pina colada?" Mimi wondered.

"Don't ask," Roger insisted.

--

Maureen ignored the pain on her tummy so she could squeal over the cute baby sharks. The lobby had a huge, thirty-foot tall, fifty-foot wide tank that was home to six baby sharks: three hammerheads and three tiger sharks.

A man with a microphone stood in front of the tank, explaining shark behavior and feeding regulations. "So," he said in conclusion, "do we have a volunteer to feed the sharks today?"

Maureen jumped up and down waving her arms insanely. "Me, me!!" she yelled. "Pick me!"

"You, in the green bathing suit," the man said, pointing at Joanne, who had just been standing there quietly.

Maureen looked down at her red swimsuit and frowned. "Oh, man….well, go on pookie!"

Joanne went up to the tank and was instructed to climb the plastic ladder to the top. Once there, the man with the microphone handed her a bucket of fish parts and a plastic glove. "Eww," Joanne moaned, even as she stuck her hand into the bucket of chum. She put her ungloved hand on the glass wall of the tank to steady herself while she fed them. Five baby sharks swam up and ate greedily. But, the other one opted to take a chomp at Joanne's other hand.

"Ow!" Joanne cried, as the little tiger shark took a bite out of her finger. Blood gushed from the wound into the tank and the other five sharks went into a frenzy, abandoning the chum for the human blood.

Joanne quickly climbed down the ladder, holding her bleeding finger and yelling at the sharks. She accidentally stepped in the spare chum bucket when she got to the bottom. "Oh, god, ew!!" she screamed, trying to kick the bucket off, not caring who got splashed with fish parts. "Help me, Maureen," she finally said, defeated.

Maureen came over and pried the bucket off Joanne's foot. "Let me see your finger," she said, calmly. "Ooh, it's bad. Let's go to first aid."

"I'm so sorry," the man said. "That's never happened before."

Joanne glared at him and held her finger protectively as Maureen ushered her away.

--

Mimi, holding Roger's hand, trudged through the crashing waves and deeper into the ocean so she could see further out into the horizon. "Do you see him, Roger?" she wondered, feeling the hopelessness creep in on her. Maybe Collins really did drown. Maybe his float had sunk with him or washed up on some other part of the beach.

"Uh, no," Roger replied, eyeing the waters suspiciously as if some giant sea creature might suddenly swallow them both.

"Let's go out a little further," Mimi suggested. They were up to their necks, standing on the ocean floor. In a few steps they wouldn't be able to touch the bottom.

"No, we can't!" Roger exclaimed, pulling her back.

"What?" Mimi demanded, staring at him. "Why not?" What possible reason could he have for not wanting to try everything they could to find Collins?

Roger mumbled something soft and incoherent.

"What was that?" Mimi asked, not understanding a single word.

"I can't swim," Roger said, meekly.

"Are you serious?" Mimi asked. "How can a grown man not know how to swim?"

"I never learned!" he declared. "I never needed to. My parents weren't exactly beach nuts."

Mimi sighed and looked out into the deeper waters. "Look, go stand on the sandbar back there," she said, pointing to a high spot toward the shore. "I'm gonna go out a little further to see if I can find anything."

"Okay, be careful," Roger instructed, kissing her. He walked back to the sandbar as Mimi swam further out toward the buoys.

--

Collins sat sobbing on his float. It was bad enough that he was stranded in the middle of the ocean, with his float constantly leaking air, but the second his hat blew away, he had lost all hope. At one point he had hopped off the float to see if he could touch bottom, but that experience was so frightening that he had nearly torn the float apart trying to get back on. Now, he was sure he would die out here, frying under the sun, dying of dehydration though he was surrounded by water.

"Why?" he repeated the word over and over. He looked around, still seeing no sign of life or land.

--

Angel looked over the pool area morosely. Collins was not there. She felt tears stinging her eyes as she climbed the stairs back to the courtyard.

In the room, she was hopeful when she heard a commotion in the bathroom, but disappointed to find that it was Maureen trying to gauze Joanne's bleeding finger. "Have you guys seen Collins?" Angel wondered, quietly.

"No, not since the beach," Maureen replied, not taking her eyes off her work. "Why, is he missing?"

"Yeah, we can't find him," Angel said softly.

"Maybe he's in the steam room," Joanne suggested.

Maureen gasped. "Cool! I didn't know there was a steam room! Laziest way to loose water weight, I always say!"

Joanne sulked over her injured finger. "Don't worry," she said to Angel, ignoring Maureen's ranting. "Collins is a big, tough guy. He can take care of himself."

Angel nodded, but wasn't feeling very comforted.

--

Mimi waded back toward shore. She had swum all the way out to the buoys without seeing Collins. She couldn't go any further without putting herself in danger. Just as Roger's head was getting back into her line of sight, Mimi found herself surrounded by clumps of green. "Ew," she said when she pulled her hand out of the water and found it tangled in seaweed. The waves at this point were beginning to get larger and harsher, since she was nearer to the shore. Mimi tried to swim around the seaweed as best she could, but there was too much of it.

Soon, getting closer to the shore, she thought she was clear of the algae. However, this thought soon faded when she realized her foot was tangled up. "Aahh!" she cried, trying to tear at the seaweed. She cringed to think of all the animals living in the weed and wanted nothing more than to be back on dry land. Waves lapped over her, submerging her often.

After a long struggle and inhaling a lot of salt water, Mimi dragged herself onto the shore, feeling her muscles fatigued. Only after she stopped kissing the sand did she realize that she had left Roger behind.

--

NoV: Wow, I didn't intend for this to turn out so dramatic! (dies) But, never fear, once everybody gets out of danger, things will be funnier.

Next time (!): Mark wakes up and is quite peeved! Collins returns to safety! Roger is stranded! Angel's wig gets eaten!


	3. Another day older and deeper in debt

NoV: Time for another chapter, my lovelies. 

--

Quotes of the day:

"Is that a front-butt?"

-Rachael, about Joanne's pants during "Take Me or Leave Me"

"I want to read about corsets and diiiiiieeeee."

-Jennifer, about the gothy people spending their time in Barnes and Noble drinking coffee and reading gothic novels

--

"You move sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt…." Collins sang these words over and over, unable to face his dire circumstances any longer. He no longer took hopeful glances toward the perceived shoreline. He knew it wasn't there. He was doomed to float forever in the sea of death…..as well as the literal sea. But, he wasn't thinking about that.

All he thought about was his song. His song about miners.

"Hey, you okay? You need a ride?" a voice suddenly called.

"It's the angel of death!" Collins cried, reaching toward the sunlight. "Take me home!"

"Um….like, no, but would you like a ride to the shore?" the voice wondered.

Collins turned his head to see a schooner full of teen girls, tan, bikini-clad and oh-so-friendly. He smiled the biggest smile imaginable and dumbly said, "Yes." He would much rather sing a song about _these_ kinds of minors.

--

Mimi had "borrowed" a megaphone from the lifeguard tower to communicate with Roger. "I am _not_ coming out there," she insisted. "There's too much seaweed! Besides, it's not deep! You can touch bottom, you're not gonna drown!"

Roger stood miserably on the sandbar. "I tried to walk through, but it's too deep!" he yelled, not knowing if she could hear him. "I went under!! I almost died!!"

"Don't be a baby!" Mimi said, rolling her eyes. "Either come back here, or pitch a tent." She threw her hands up in the air. She'd be damned if she was going to get in that disgusting seaweed again. She sat down on the moist sand, letting the waves wash over her feet while she watched a panicky Roger getting into the water.

Roger didn't want to leave the safety of the sandbar. He was really hoping that Mimi would come out to get him and give him a piggy-back ride back to shore. He wondered if she would mind asking the lifeguard to do it for her.

Roger looked at his surroundings. Lots of water. Water that caused drowning, which was bad. He was a good thirty yards from shore. He knew with his low swimming abilities that he wouldn't make it. There was a group of kids swimming a few yards ahead of him…..maybe they would help him….

"Hey, Rog!"

"Oh, hi Collins," Roger replied. He did a double-take, when he realized that he was looking at a luxurious schooner filled with young girls and Collins holding a margarita. "What the hell?"

"Hey man, you need a ride?" Collins asked. Now, it is certain that Collins preferred men (particularly pretty men) to women. But, he definitely preferred women to dehydrating on a float in the middle of the ocean.

Roger preferred women to all of these things. He clambered aboard the boat like a spider monkey and shouted, "Land ahoy!"

--

The small boat propelled all the way up to shore, allowing its two male passengers to get off. "Thanks, you guys!" Roger exclaimed, giving the girls a big smile and waving.

"Yeah, I owe you one!" Collins said.

"No problem, guys! Have a fun vacation," the leader of the girls cried, as their boat pulled off and down the shoreline.

Mimi came stomping over and grabbed Roger by the arm. "Who were they?" she demanded.

"Uhh…..they're cheerleaders," Roger replied. "They're here for cheer competition."

This did not please Mimi. "Of all the boats in the whole ocean, you just happened to get on the one with all the cheerleaders?" she demanded.

"Hey, Collins got on first," Roger said, defensively.

"Collins!!" yelled an excited Angel running down the beach. Her arms were open, ready for a hug and her eyes were big and sparkily. She wouldn't have cared if Collins had shown up on a boat full of sailors! Well….maybe sailors, but cheerleaders? Pshaw! She was just so glad to see him that she jumped on him, tackling him onto the ground.

"Woah!" Collins said, landing on the sand. He and Angel shared a kiss or two before he said, "I am so happy to see you."

Angel's lip quivered. "I was so worried! Are you okay? What happened??" she cried.

They began to walk up the beach while Collins told about his harrowing nightmare. Mimi and Roger were close behind, arguing.

Maureen and Joanne had come back to the beach and were sitting with the still snoozing Mark. The other two couples joined them, wondering what had become of the umbrella. Soon all the chattering jarred Mark awake. He opened his eyes, and for some reason this was a painful task. As Mark became more wakeful, he realized that there was a hot, stingy sensation all over him. On his face, his lower arms, his lower legs. The only parts of him that didn't hurt were the parts protected by his clothes. That could only mean one thing.

Mark sat up so suddenly that everyone else jumped back. "I'm sunburned!" Mark yelled, giving them all accusing looks.

Roger scoffed, "Well you're the one that was laying out here all day!"

"Who took the umbrella down?" Mark demanded. "It was supposed to protect me!"

"We thought _you_ took it down," Mimi replied. "We thought you were trying to tan."

"We didn't want to disturb you," Roger added.

Mark groaned and wordlessly began walking toward the hotel.

"Where are you going?" Collins asked.

"I'm going to buy aloe," Mark responded.

--

Half an hour later, the sun was beginning to go down, so the group decided to check out the hotel's other attractions. Mark had gone up to the room. After soaking himself in a bathtub of aloe, he had buried himself in blankets in bed when he started to get chills from the fevers of the sunburn. Collins and Roger got in the pool, glad to have it to themselves, since most everyone else in the hotel had gone out to eat. Maureen and Joanne had gone to the steam room to relax and lose some of that water weight that Maureen was so obsessed about. Mimi and Angel had taken to the steamy hot tub next to the pool where they reclined and chatted.

"I'm about to burst!" Angel exclaimed. "Only twenty-seven hours until Margo Fletcher!!!!"

Mimi rolled her eyes. "Okay, stop with the countdown already. Can't we just enjoy our vacation without thinking about the hat lecture every five minutes?"

All of a sudden Angel's head rolled backward with such an inanimate detachment that Mimi thought her friend had died. Mimi was a millisecond away from calling for help when Angel's head snapped back up wigless.

Mimi screamed, not expecting this. "Angel! What happened to your wig??"

Angel's hand shot up to his head and he turned around quickly. He saw the blond wig that had once been on his head getting chopped up into chunks in the hot tub's whirring jets. "The hot tub ate it!!" he cried. He turned around to give Mimi a scary look. "Mimi, that was the only hair I brought with me!!"

Angel and Mimi gave it a three-second pause, then screamed at the top of their lungs in unison. Angel screamed because he now looked like a very odd man in a bikini, and Mimi screamed because she knew she was about to be dragged on a very tiring all-night wig-shopping excursion.

--

NoV: That made me giggle. Notice that the transformation of Angel's pronouns was caused by the loss of the wig. . I didn't slip up. So, hope that was enjoyable!

Next time (!): Angel and Mimi go wig-hunting, Mimi loses something important, Maureen gets trapped, Mark gets in a pinch.


	4. Nakedity's in the eye of the unfortunate

NoV: Wow, I have a major headache….but I will press on! . It's a chapter FULL of naked people, yay!!! 

--

Quote of the day:

"Cheese is the devil's plaything."

-House

--

Roger was hesitant to let Mimi and Angel take the keys to the van. First of all, it wasn't his van and if it got wrecked, he'd be responsible. Secondly, he wasn't sure if Angel or Mimi had a driver's license. But, preferring to relax instead of arguing, he handed over the small key ring.

Mimi and Angel excitedly ran off into the hotel. They had to change out of their swimsuits before going off to the mall.

--

Meanwhile, Joanne and Maureen were having a less pleasant time.

"I saw the way you were looking at her!" Joanne accusingly said.

"She was naked!" Maureen insisted. "How could I _not_ look at her??"

"People are allowed to be naked in steam rooms, Maureen. The polite and _normal_ thing to do is look somewhere else!"

"Well, you shouldn't have said anything to her, then," Maureen argued. "You insulted her and she left. What if she kills herself?"

"I had to do something!" Joanne yelled. "You looked like you were going to pounce on her like a lion on a wildebeest!"

"Oh, stop overreacting, Pook!" Maureen said. She went to cuddle her steaming girlfriend.

Joanne wasn't going to have it, though. "No, Maureen! I'm not overreacting. I am reacting at just the right level." She grabbed her towel off the bench. "I need to be alone," she said, as she left, slamming the door behind her.

"Oh, come on, don't be like that!" Maureen exclaimed, going after her. She tried opening the door, but it was locked shut from the outside. Maureen looked out the small window but didn't see Joanne anywhere. "P-Pookie?" she said. "Anyone? Oh, no….."

--

Angel and Mimi arrived in the small motel room to find Mark bundled up in bed like he was hibernating. Exchanging a look with Angel, Mimi stuck her head under the covers to find Mark's face. "Mark?" she said, softly. He didn't budge. He was asleep. Mimi talked to him anyway. "Mark, me and Angel are about to change, so don't peek, okay? Okay."

Angel and Mimi went about changing out of their swimsuits. Angel changed into some of Collins' clothes, feeling ridiculous and awkward. Mimi changed into a simple pair of jeans and a breezy top. Angel started to grab his purse, but thought better of it and just snagged the wallet, stuffing it in his/Collins' back pocket.

"Ready to go?" Mimi wondered.

"Yep, bye Mark!" Angel called, as they started for the door.

"Bye you two," came the reply.

That was enough to cause two heads to turn around very quickly. Mark's sunburned head was lying back on the pillow, now covered up only to his neck.

"Mark….did you see me naked?" Mimi wondered.

"More importantly, did you see _me_ naked??" Angel cried, clutching protectively at his shirt collar.

"Angel, please," Mimi said.

"Um, I-I didn't see anything naked," Mark said quickly.

Mimi raised an eyebrow and then left with Angel. Once they were gone, Mark let out a pleased shudder, which assuredly could be chalked up to delirium from his sunburn.

--

Roger and Collins, slowly becoming prunes, were still lounging in the pool. Collins noticed that Roger kept distractedly looking over at the hotel's office. "Waiting on a hot date?" Collins finally wondered.

"No," Roger replied, quickly. "I'm just waiting for someone to come and tell us that Mimi and Angel ran into a flagpole or shanghaied a dozen wigs or something."

Collins rolled his eyes. "Take it easy. You know they'll be careful."

--

"No, Angel. You can't get the mohawk."

"Awww….well, how about—"

"No. Not the afro either."

Mimi and Angel had found a party store, which kept a section of Halloween costumes year-round. There were a lot of different and original wigs. In fact, there were too many. Angel couldn't decide which one he wanted.

He kept flitting around to every wig that caught his eye, saying "Ooh, this one is so cute! But look at this one! I like it, it's really cool! This one would make me look like Rapunzel, do you think Collins would like that?"

Mimi shrugged. "I don't know, Angel," she said. Mimi was thinking of the wigs in terms of which ones she didn't want to be seen with on the beach. The rainbow afro was definitely out (not that Angel really liked that one.) But, he had liked the rastafarian, and Mimi had gently refused.

"Oh, what about a Pocahontas wig?" Angel wondered, holding up a black, braided wig with a feather in it.

"Sure," Mimi said.

"Or this one?" he held up a silver tinsel wig.

"Maybe at Christmas," Mimi replied.

"Look at this one!" Angel held up a long, curly brown wig. "This one's sexy, isn't it?"

"I don't know about long hair," Mimi said, skeptically. "That's why the blond one got chewed up. Why don't you try to find one like that black Chinese wig you always wear?"

"First, it's not Chinese. It's called a bob," Angel said, gently. "And second, haven't you ever heard of variety?" Suddenly he gasped, clutching at his chest.

Mimi shook her head, startled. "What?? What is it?"

Angel took a wig from the rack and said, "This is the one! Let's go now."

--

Maureen's hair was soaked through and clung to his shoulders and face. She could feel every pore on her body screaming from the heat. She stayed vigilant at the window, though she wanted to sit down and pass out. Every now and then she would yell for help, but no one came. She wondered if anyone could even hear her. Oh, if only the thermostat weren't on the outside like the lock! What was this, some kind of medieval torture chamber that the hotel never bothered to fix?

Maureen glanced over her shoulder at the empty room. Why couldn't she have gotten locked in _with_ Joanne? Or that naked girl? She looked around, the steam rising around like fog making it hard to see far away. That's when she noticed the air vent in the ceiling and decided to go for it.

--

By the time Angel and Mimi got back, Roger and Collins were back in the room with Mark, asleep again, watching TV. Angel, having changed back into drag in the van, was practically beaming when she waltzed into the room, pirouetted, and allowed everyone to marvel at her new wig. "What do you think?" she wondered, making a cute pouty face. All those awake in the room nodded their approval.

Collins came forward to give her a kiss. "I like it," he said, fingering a strand of her hair between his fingers. "It's sexy."

"See, I told you," Angel said to Mimi, giving a Cheshire cat grin. She had picked a multi-length wig that was short in back and shoulder-length toward the front, perfect for the hot tub. It was a very dark color, at first seeming jet black, but in certain lights it was revealed to be a deep purple.

Joanne at this moment popped in, looking tired and frustrated. "Is Maureen here?" she asked right off. Seeing the others shake their heads, she settled into a chair and sulked. "She's probably mad at me….."

"Did you have a fight?" Mimi asked, knowing it was a stupid question.

"Yeah….she was gawking at….oh, never mind, I don't want to talk about it," Joanne grumbled.

Maureen burst through the door, drenched, with a few cuts on her arms and legs, and barely able to keep her towel from falling off. "SHE WAS NAKED, YOU BITCH, I COULDN'T HELP IT!" she screamed. Immediately after this, she trudged forward and collapsed at the foot of Mark's bed.

Joanne went to her side. "Maureen, what happened??"

Maureen turned around to glare at her. "Oh, like you don't know?" she hissed. "You locked me in the fucking steam room!"

"What? No I didn't!" Joanne protested.

"I had to crawl through an air vent and I ended up in someone's hotel room and it was scary! Old people shouldn't have sex!" By this point she was wailing and trembling from the terror of the plight she had just escaped. Joanne held her as she cried.

Maureen's sobbing subsiding while she said, "I just wanna get in the pool and get cooled off," she announced.

"Come on, honey, we'll go with you," Mimi said as she and Joanne helped Maureen to her feet. Mimi stopped in the bathroom first to quickly change back into her bikini.

Roger shrugged at Collins and Angel. "Guess I'm going with Mimi," he said.

"I'm too waterlogged," Collins said. "Want to go hunt for crabs with a flashlight?"

"On the beach?" Angel wondered.

"Yeah, on the beach," Collins replied, wondering why that was even a question.

"Sure, I'll go!" Angel exclaimed. "Let's wake Markie and see if he'll go. Oh, Markie….."

--

Mark had been awakened and thought it might feel good to get out from under the itchy blankets and into the cool moonlight, so he went along with Angel and Collins to the beach to hunt for crabs. Collins had thought ahead to bring a flashlight on the trip and Angel had brought a sand pail. This would be useful in case they found a crab that was so cute it had to become a pet.

The three walked down onto the deserted beach, the gentle sound of the ocean very melodic and natural. Collins shined the flashlight in front so they could stay away from the sandspur patches and tall grass.

"OH MY GOD THERE'S ONE!!" Angel shrieked, spotting a little white crab scurrying across the sand.

"Where?" Mark cried, not seeing the tiny creature as it came closer to him.

"It's right there!" Angel exclaimed, delighted. "It likes you, Mark!"

"What?? Is it near me?" Mark demanded, still not seeing it.

"Well, don't be scared of it," Angel insisted. "It's just a—"

"OW!!" Mark screamed as it pinched his toe.

"—crab…."

"Let's go say hi to Al in first aid," Collins said, sighing.

--

After getting cooled off in the chilly pool water, Maureen had calmed considerably. She and Joanne even agreed to disagree over the naked lady from the steam room.

Roger sat with Mimi in his lap in a wicker chair on the deck. "How was wig shopping?" he asked her.

"You don't wanna know," Mimi replied, shaking her head. "Come on, you wanna get in the water?" She stood up and pulled at his hand.

"Nah," he said. "I'm okay just relaxing here. You go ahead."

"Okay," Mimi said cheerfully. She didn't realize that the string on one side of her bikini bottoms was hung up in the rivets of the chair until she was five feet away from it and suddenly very cold. "Oh my god, nobody look!!" she screamed, trying with all her power to cover herself.

Roger's brain told him to look away. He shouldn't gawk at Mimi's nakedity if she didn't want him to. But his eyes wouldn't listen. He couldn't tear his gaze away. And, of course when Mimi yelled "Nobody look!" Maureen and Joanne had turned around too.

Mimi was panicking. She didn't know whether to just jump in the pool, or grab for her bathing suit or grab a towel or just run! Trying to collect her wits, she took a deep breath and ordered her friends, "I want everyone to _close their eyes_ so I can make myself decent."

"Hey, everyone! Markie got pinched by a crab and we—" Angel's cheery voice halted there. She, Mark and Collins froze, wondering why Mimi was half-naked.

"I repeat!" Mimi yelled. She wasn't going to just stand there with everyone ogling at her. "I want everyone to CLOSE THEIR EYES so I can make myself DECENT!!!"

The group looked away long enough for her to grab the rest of her swimsuit and put it back on. "My life is falling apart very, very slowly," Mimi seethed, heading back off to the motel room. No one followed her. They were all too shocked.

--

NoV: Hmm….fun. I don't know, um, does anyone else go looking for beach crabs at night with a flashlight? My family always used to do that. I don't know….

Next time (!): Mimi has a parasailing accident, Angel has a seadoo accident, Roger falls, Joanne gets attacked, and Mark makes out with a merman!


	5. Vacationing hurts

NoV: Whew! I'm coming off a huge sugar rush! (This could get silly.) 

--

Quote of the day:

Lisa: Oh, I'll just rush over and make out with this random person, then go make a naughty pose with this other person.

NoV: Well, whatever you do, don't let Mark fall off the table.

-me and Lisa while watching "La vie boheme"

--

Six little creatures were curled up in bed, dreaming the dreams of tranquillity. These comfy little guys were sound asleep, not planning to wake up for several hours yet. This was a holiday, no reason to wake up bright and early. However, one little creature was already up. This busy-bodied little thing was already showered, dressed and aflame with excitement.

A sudden shout awakened the other six. "Can you believe it's finally here?? Again!" Angel cried.

"Wha? …..early…." Maureen moaned, snuggling into Joanne.

"Mmm…." Collins groaned. "Baby, come back to bed."

"No, no," Angel said in a mothering tone. "You need to get up."

Mark rolled over on the couch, grabbing his camera off the floor and turning it on Angel. "Saturday. Seven am. Angel is a very annoying alarm clock trying to wake us up too early on our vacation."

Angel gave a feigned pout and put her hands on hips. "You're all just jealous because you could never be so perky and gorgeous at seven am! Seriously, time to get up! Margo Fletcher will be presenting in…..thirteen hours, forty-five minutes!" She looked like she was ready to start a parade.

"Good, let's sleep for thirteen hours….get ready in forty-five minutes…." Roger mumbled.

"Need I remind you that we're leaving first thing tomorrow? Don't you want to spend some time having fun??" Angel cried.

"Angel, shut up! God!" Mimi griped. She was definitely not a morning person. She placed her pillow over her head and rolling over, kicking Roger in the process. "I didn't go to bed until two am, I just want to sleep!" she yelled through the pillow.

Angel's lip warbled at the insensitive thing Mimi had just said to her. She snapped back to giddiness quickly, however, remembering the lecture she had been promised at the bottom of the evening. "Come on!" Angel insisted. "Let's go get breakfast and eat it on the beach!"

Mark groaned. "I'm up, I'm up. I can't get back down…." he mumbled, rolling off the couch and onto the floor into a sitting position.

Angel, feeling that Mark's getting up supported her, grabbed Collins' hands and pulled him up. "Get up, Bunny!" she commanded, using a new pet name on him.

"Why call me Bunny?" Collins wondered, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Cause we make love like rabbits?"

Angel giggled. "No, but that works too," she said. "Hey, you know what I want to do today? Other than see the great and amazing show that Margo Fletcher will put on! I would sell my SOUL to see that! But, besides that, I really want to rent one of those seadoo things and ride around!"

"Oh, cool!" Mimi cried. "I want to do something like that too….like parasailing!" She jabbed Roger with her elbow. "Want to get a two-seater parasail?"

Roger sat up, resentfully and shook his head. "No, I don't like heights."

Mimi facefaulted. "Are you suddenly afraid of _everything_?"

--

An hour or so later Mimi and Angel, arms linked, led Collins and Roger, arms unlinked, down the pier where the seadoos and parasailing rides and such were rented. It was a rickety old bridge jutting out over the ocean where many old men in yellow raincoats (who looked a lot like that fish sticks guy) stood all day fishing. The first part of the pier, on the other hand, had many souvenir shops, bathrooms, a first aid stand, fast food joints and of course the rental shops. It was kind of like a small boardwalk.

Mimi wore a white two-piece suit with a pink butterfly on the left bust and on the backside. Angel had on a blue bikini top under an under-arm length pink jacket along with very short, tight swimsuit shorts. Collins wore black trunks, a new hat, and sandals. Roger wore blue trunks, sandals and sunglasses.

"Hello!" Angel trilled to the rental guy hippie. "I want to rent a seadoo!" 

"Thirty-five dollars by the hour, one hundred dollars by the day," he droned.

"Good God!" Collins exclaimed. "I've had cheaper prostitutes!" When Angel gave him a glare, he amended, "I mean I've _heard_ of cheaper prostitutes…."

"Oh, just pay the man, Pookie," Angel said with a sniff.

"Don't turn into Maureen on me now, baby," Collins said shaking his head as he rifled through his wallet. "If you start giving protests, or mooing at random people, I'm taking you to a psychiatrist."

"Moooooo," Angel joked, and Mimi laughed.

"How much to go parasailing?" Mimi wondered.

"They charge you by the mile," the guy replied. "The people that run the parasailing operation are independent contractors, not affiliated with the hotel. They pay for their boats, the gas, the sails, everything by themselves. I have a coupon you can use for $10 off your first ride, but if you use the coupon, you have to tip the boat captain. Otherwise, he might get pissed and let you land in deep water where the sharks and jellyfish are. You have to be respectful too, and say 'Yes sir,' to the captain, because he pays a lot of money, and really doesn't get enough back to keep his business going. He does it for you guys, for the tourists. His family probably doesn't have enough food to go around because people like you are too cheap to—"

"HOW MUCH?" Mimi repeated.

"Sixty bucks," he said simply.

Mimi shoved the money onto the counter. "There, geez!"

Roger shook his head. "Let's go," he said. Just as the group started making its way back down the pier toward the beach, Roger again heard the very distinct creaking noise and knew that something bad would happen. And it did. Roger happened to step on a rotten part of the wood and fell right through. Mimi screamed in surprise when Roger's head was suddenly only up to her waist. The terrified guitarist clung to the pier for dear life, as his lower half dangled over the many hooks and corks of the fishermen. He did not want to get tangled up in all that. "Help me," he squeaked, sounding like a fly, as he was grasping and struggling with all his might.

The other three tugged him up and set him gently down on the pier. He lay there for a minute or two, breathing heavily. "Yikes," he said, inspecting a splintery cut up the side of his leg.

"Oh, you're hurt!" Mimi wailed, fawning over him.

"Oh, it's not that serious," he waved her off. "I just need something to hold pressure against it and maybe get a band-aid."

"To the first aid," Collins once again announced.

--

Meanwhile, Maureen, Joanne and Mark were watching a sand-sculpting contest that was going on. Lots of people had shown up to build lots of creative things out of sand. The first prize was a free trip to the shell islands, where one could theoretically scavenge for shells.

As soon as Maureen heard of the contest and the fantastic prize, she began sculpting something of her own. Mark and Joanne watched for awhile and soon they could tell what she was making: a cow, Elsie.

Mark excused himself to go look at some of the other sculptures. He saw a giant telephone, a dolphin, a cat, a flip flop, a teddy bear, and the most impressive of all, a merman who resembled the great and famed King Neptune, complete with triton. Mark looked upon all these things, in awe at the great detail all of them had. He was just about to walk past them to see some of the other sculptures when he tripped over something, a sand pail, half-hidden in the sand! He, of course, fell flat upon King Neptune, face to face. Mark remained frozen, dreading the embarrassment of the situation. At least the guys weren't around….

"Mark! Why do you always make out with inanimate men everywhere we go?" Collins asked, as he and the others strode up to him.

Mark winced. He pushed himself off of the once-great merman sculpture, now crumbling and nearly unrecognizable. Mark now had a sand beard, which helped conceal the red blush spreading across his face underneath it.

He was about to offer up an explanation, to spare himself his friends' ridicule when a voice cried, "Hey, you jerk! I worked on that for six hours!!"

Mark meekly turned around to face the owner of the voice. It was, of course, a huge, burly man whose face was turning red with rage. This man looked about ready to beat Mark into a little pulp, while Mark cowered away, looking distressed.

"Hey, man," Collins said, coming to Mark's rescue. He walked in between Mark and the offended muscular guy. "He doesn't know any better, okay? He's a little….touched." Collins made a facial gesture to bring across Mark's apparent lunacy.

"Oh," the guy said. "You better watch him better, then." He stalked off to bully some other group of people.

Mark watched as the man trolloped away, then scowled at Collins. "Great, now that guy thinks I'm crazy!"

Collins was surprised that Mark could be upset with him. "I just saved you, man!" he insisted. "That guy was out for your blood. And let's not forget when you told a whole group of people at the museum that I was your 'crazy Uncle Jed' who missed his medication!"

Mark sighed. "Fine," he grumbled. "Thanks…."

Angel and Mimi were both barely able to contain their excitement, so with kisses to their respective boyfriends, they ran down the beach to get their respective joy rides.

--

Half an hour later, Maureen was outraged that she hadn't won the sand-sculpting contest. "I can't believe the girl that sculpted the stupid cat won!" she yelled, kicking her cow back to dust. "It's not fair….."

"Maureen, she's just a kid," Joanne said, reasonably. "Come on, you wanna feed the seagulls? I brought some bread." She showed the aforementioned wheat to Maureen.

"Okay," Maureen said, pouting a little less. She took a piece of bread and crumbled it, throwing it up into the air. "Here seagulls!" A few birds flew over cautiously to grab some of the bread. "Aw, they're so hungry!" Maureen exclaimed.

Mark, now less miffed about the merman encounter, was filming the display, as Maureen threw bread up in the air to the hungry birds.

"Come and get it!" she shouted, throwing up a handful of the crumbs. Unfortunately, she threw them a little further than she should have and half of them rained down on Joanne, into her hair and down the front of her peach, one-piece bathing suit.

"Maureen!" Joanne cried in disbelief. She didn't have time to berate her girlfriend further, as a sect of the seagulls flew all around her. It was a little known secret that Joanne had once seen the Alfred Hitchcock film, _The Birds_, and ran out of the theater, screaming and crying. Now, it appeared that she was living out that experience.

Mark got the whole thing on film. Joanne ran around screaming like she was on fire, while a couple of seagulls casually followed her, trying to peck at the bread in her hair. Maureen ran behind her, not being able to catch up to her since she was laughing so hard. Finally Joanne collapsed onto the sand, using the STOP DROP AND ROLL technique to confuse the birds. Only it didn't work. The seagulls instead dove on either side of her, scrambling for the bread the she had shaken off. Finally, they dispersed. Mark and Maureen closed in on Joanne, who was covered in feathers and sand and was twitching every so often.

Maureen helped her to her feet. "Let's go sit down over here, Pookie," she said, comfortingly to the very distraught lawyer.

"Okay, that sounds yeah," Joanne said, not making any sense at all.

--

The seadoo instructor had told Angel all the basic rules and know-how's of the seadoo. He offered to go out with her on a test run to see how she would handle it, but Angel was confident about the machine. He helped her push the seadoo out into the surf, steadied it for her to get on and she was off, bouncing over the crashing waves. Angel screamed in delight, handling the thing masterfully. She gave a wave to Mimi, then to Collins, Roger, and Mark, who was filming her take-off.

The instructor then went back to lecture Mimi about parasailing etiquette. Once he had given her the basic run-down, he helped her get strapped into the parasail's harnesses. "You ready?" he asked, once she was secure.

"Yep," Mimi said, holding onto the ropes that held her safely in.

The guy gave a thumbs-up to the boat captain, who was a couple of hundred yards out into the water. He took off slowly, pulling Mimi along with him. Mimi gave a cry of joy when the wind caught her sails and lifted her effortlessly off the ground and into the air. "Whoo-hoo!" she cried, her legs dangling high above the water. Just as she was started to have the time of her life, however, something went really, really wrong. One of the ropes, she realized, was hung up on something and snapped with the speed the boat was taking her along. Mimi screamed as she was detached from the boat and floating hundreds of feet in the air in the parasail.

Mark, behind his camera, commented, "Mimi's going down!"

Roger jumped to his feet as he realized what was happening and ran toward the spot Mimi was hovering above. Mark and Collins watched in disbelief as Roger tried to calm Mimi down five hundred feet below her. Maureen and a less disturbed Joanne soon joined them and gawked at the scene. Suddenly, the wind blew Mimi further out to sea, and she screamed all the more, terrified of where she would land.

Meanwhile, Angel, oblivious to Mimi's crisis, was having a great time riding around on the seadoo. She felt very confident, driving like an expert. She was so full of herself and her abilities that she began singing, although she wouldn't have if she had known anyone would hear her. "I am so cool," she sang, "on my seadoo. Nobody knows, how cool I am. I look so cool, you all so jealous! No one can drive like Angel can!" Then she screamed. She screamed because at that moment, Mimi in a very James Bond type moment landed on the back of the seadoo, making the undertaking look effortless, although she was screaming too.

The two friends turned to look at each other and began to laugh in disbelief and in relief.

Mark commented from shore, "And looks like Mimi is saved!"

Then, the sail came down, covering both of their heads, the seadoo still going at full speed. It rammed a buoy, doing a subsequent nose-dive into the water. Angel and Mimi were flung in opposite directions.

"And now they're both dead," Mark said. He didn't say this out of morbidity, just to make the commentary and his film sound cooler, so no one would know how terrified he was. Collins and Roger both took off into the water, trying to save their girlfriends from whatever danger had befallen them. "We will end our vacation with two funerals," Mark said, adding a dark laugh before shutting off the camera and going to see if they were all right.

--

Roger had faced his fear of the deep water to get to Mimi and bring her back to shore. She wasn't moving. Collins pulled Angel along, who wasn't moving either. The two men laid their girls next to each other on the sand, wondering if they should do CPR. Maureen and Joanne could hardly contain their emotions as they looked on at their two lifeless friends. Mark stood there, wishing there was something he could do. He made a mental note to erase his gruesome commentary from the film.

Angel's eyes fluttered open. She looked around to a relieved Collins, then shouted, "Oh, my god, I can't move at all!"

Mimi's eyes opened as well. "Oh, no! Me neither!" she cried. "Except I can move my eyes!"

Angel rolled hers. "Well, I can move my eyes, Mimi. My mouth too. I was just talking about the important stuff. That's what I can't move."

"Eyes and mouths are important too," Mimi insisted.

"We've gotta get to a hospital," Roger said, not knowing if they should move the two paralyzed people.

"NO!" Angel immediately shouted. "No hospitals!! We'll miss the hats!"

"Okay, I can sort of understand your logic when you broke your butt that time," Collins said. "But now you're being ridiculous. You are _paralyzed_. You had a horrific _seadoo_ accident. We're going to the hospital."

"NOOOOOOO!" Angel wailed, even as she was lifted off the shore. "If you make me go to the hospital, I'll—I'll—I'll never touch you again!"

"If we don't go to the hospital and you end up paralyzed for life, then you'll _definitely_ never touch me again," Collins reasoned with her. "Come on, I promise you'll make it back in time for the hats."

"Noooooooooooo!!" came the blood-curdling scream. 

--

NoV: Yahai! Another chapter! Guess how many of the things in this chapter have happened in my real life! Go on, guess!

Next time (!): Mimi's gets stuck to a chair, Mark finds himself on a nude beach, Maureen wins a different contest, Collins gets buried in the sand, Angel has one too many daiquiris!


	6. Alcohol can be dangerous part II

NoV: Saturday's chapter is here, my brethren! And the trivia question from last time when I asked if anyone knew how many of things had happened in my real life from that chapter: the answer is 4. I had a guy on the beach renting parasail rides lecture me for forty-five minutes, my sister fell through a pier, I got attacked by seagulls (but who hasn't), and I hit a buoy on a seadoo. My life is sad….

--

Quote of the day:

Kush: I want your fruit, but not _that_ way.

Alley: He dropped a pineapple in my ketchup.

--

The paralysis just turned out to be a temporary shocked response. The bohemians only ended up wasting four hours in the emergency room at the local hospital, which Angel could live with. Maureen suggested that they all go out to lunch since they were in town anyway, so they stopped off at a seafood place by the coast.

The seven of them were sitting at a long table, looking at menus, except for Angel who was gushing yet again about Margo Fletcher. "I bet she's so great! I wonder if she'll sign my hat! That would be so cool. I could sell it at an auction for thousands of dollars! No, I'd rather keep it and stare at it and cherish it…."

"Baby, the waiter wants to know what you'll have to drink," Collins said for the third time.

"I am the luckiest person in the entire world! Maybe she'll ask me to come on the road with her and help her think of designs! I should definitely wear my patchwork dress…." she rambled.

Collins turned to the waiter. "You got any tranquilizers?"

"…..we have really strong whiskey," the waiter replied, quite annoyed but keeping up a polite front.

"That'll do," Collins said, giving him his leave.

"Make it two," Mimi said, rubbing her sore head.

Gratefully, the man walked into the kitchen shaking his head.

--

Twenty-five minutes later, their steaming food was brought out to them by their unfortunate waiter. Joanne, who had ordered the lobster, pulled the lid off of her fancy plate. Steam rose from the plate to reveal what she had expected, the lobster. She just….didn't expect for it to be alive.

"Excuse me," she said, stopping the waiter by pulling on his shirt. "What—what is this?"

The waiter ripped their ticket off his pad and placed it on the table. "There's your bill," he said flatly. "Enjoy your meal."

The lobster began walking off the plate and onto the tablecloth as the seven of them stared at it in disbelief. It walked around inspecting all the items on the table like an inquisitive little lobster should.

Maureen squeaked, "Let's name him Jeff!"

--

Forty-five minutes later found them all back on the beach or at the pool: Collins, Angel, Maureen and Joanne on the beach and Roger, Mimi and Mark at the pool. The lobster, ahem, Jeff was playing in its makeshift habitat in the hotel room's bathtub. Down on the beach, Maureen was waving to a couple of guys who walked by, admiring her bikini, while Joanne freaked out and demanded she cover herself up. To this, Maureen stuck out her tongue and stomped off down the beach while Joanne sat simmering in her anger. Angel and Collins, the apparent and literal opposite of the female couple, were having a pleasant conversation and lying together on a beach blanket. (Even though Collins felt a little like strangling Angel every time she brought up Margo Fletcher or hats in general.)

"It's a pretty day, isn't it?" Collins said.

"Five hours until Margo's hat lecture!" Angel cried as if the sentiment just had to burst out like an overfilled balloon.

"Is that a yes?"

Angel looked at him for a full minute, a wide-eyed expression on her face, neither of them saying a word. Suddenly she burst into tears.

"What's wrong, baby?" Collins asked, worriedly taking her into his arms.

"I'm just so happy," she sobbed.

Collins was at a loss for what to say to that. "Um….it'll be okay….?"

Angel's tears dried quickly. "Let me bury you in the sand!"

"What?" Collins said reflexively.

"Lemme bury you in the sand!" Angel repeated. "C'mon! It'll be fun!"

"Okay…."

"Lie on your back," Angel instructed, pointing to a flat patch of sand. Collins did as she told him to. Angel began piling sand on top of him as he lay there, hoping she was still sane.

--

In the meantime Mark and Roger were hanging out in the pool, partially bothered by all the loud, annoying kids swimming around. Mimi was sitting on a plastic deck chair, tanning.

"Hey, Mimi, come get in the pool and we'll play chicken against Mark and this little ten-year-old bastard that won't leave us alone," Roger said as he and Mark walked over to Mimi.

Mimi pulled down her sunglasses to reveal her uninterested expression. "I don't think cracking my head open would be the best way to end the vacation. You know how Angel freaks out every time you mention the word 'hospital,' so….." She lay back, putting her shades back into place.

"Come on," Mark said. "You're all red. You look like you're burning up, and it's making me uncomfortable." He himself was wearing a t-shirt to compensate for the hideous farmer's tan he had acquired, and he planned to never take it off so long as he lived and was in public.

"I am a little hot," Mimi admitted. She shrugged and sat up. When she tried to stand, however, she found that her bottom was stuck to the plastic chair with sweat. "Ow!" she cried as she felt it pinch her skin.

"What is it?" Roger wondered as she made strange movements to try and slowly remove herself from the chair.

"Owww," she seethed. "Arrrggh….I'm stuck to the chair…."

Mark couldn't help but say, "I guess this would be the lawn chair sticky-butt dance, then…."

Mimi glared at him and finally pried herself off the chair, like ripping off a butt-sized band-aid.

--

"Hahaha!" Angel laughed maniacally, pouring buckets of sand on Collins' head. "You'll never see the light of day again!!"

Collins tried to cry out for Joanne's help, but when he opened his mouth, sand poured in and prevented any noise from escaping. His eyes pleaded for Angel to stop, to realize that she was killing him, but she only became more enflamed with the desire to smother him.

"Goodbye, Collins!" she said with a dark chuckle. "Have a good after-life! Hahahahahaha!"

--

Collins burst free of his sand cocoon all of a sudden, startling Angel and Joanne, who were minding their own business, reading magazines. He breathed heavily, then calmed down realizing that it was a dream. A very frightening dream.

Angel recovered from the fright quickly, saying, "Four hours until the hats!" She smiled at Collins, then grabbed a beer from the cooler and starting chugging it in a less than ladylike manner.

"Uhhh…..baby?" Collins wondered, standing up and wiping off some of the sand. "Why are you drinking so much?"

Angel blinked, confused. She had only had the two—no three—whiskey shots at lunch, and now the one beer….That wasn't a lot, was it? "I don't know," she answered. "I'm jittery. It calms me down…."

Collins raised an eyebrow, but didn't get a chance to say anything else as Maureen, with a tiara and a white, plastic sash, came running up to them, excitedly.

"Guess what, Pookie!" she cried, hugging Joanne, having forgotten their argument.

Joanne didn't resist the hug, but didn't embrace her back. She simply asked, "What?"

"I won the Miss Bikini contest!" Maureen yelled. "I'm Miss Bikini!"

"Oh my god," Joanne said quietly.

"Congratulations!" Angel screamed, alarming Collins.

"Thank you!" Maureen exclaimed. "I won ten pounds of tanning oil, a gift certificate to some bikini store, and a free party with a huge buffet! Isn't it great?"

"Oh, sure," Joanne said, adjusting the tiara for her.

"Let's go tell the others!" Maureen cried, bouncing up the beach. Joanne followed her, groaning.

Angel picked up the blankets and Collins grabbed the cooler. They began to follow Maureen and Joanne back to the hotel when out of nowhere, something rammed Collins very violently in the head. "Yow…." he said softly, then toppled over.

"Honey!" Angel cried, dropping the towels and rushing to Collins' side. He lay there dazed with a huge bruise forming on the side of his face. "Are you okay, baby?" Angel asked.

"Ahhh….." Collins groaned. "What hit me?"

Angel looked at the object. "Um…..our umbrella."

"Wha?" Collins said, confused. "Who threw it?"

"No one threw it," Angel replied. "It was blowing around in the wind….."

Collins' leg twitched and he shook his head to clear the stupor clouding his brain. "Wow…." he simply said. "That was messed up."

--

Mark got out of the pool a few minutes after Mimi had gotten in. "I'm gonna see what the others are up to," he said. "My shirt's getting heavy; I need to let it dry out some."

"Why don't you just take it off?" Roger wondered.

Mark just gave him a glare, as he knew that Roger knew very well why he didn't want to take it off. The filmmaker walked around the pool area, seeing a sign that said "BEACH: THIS WAY." He didn't remember going that way to the beach before, but shrugged and naively decided to follow it.

Mark, once he made it past the fence, scanned the beach for his friends, but didn't spot them right away. He walked further onto the beach when a blond, muscled guy ran up to him, carrying a beach ball at hip-level. "Hey, man!" he said, halting Mark from going any further. "You can't wear that stuff here!"

Mark looked down at his clothes, wondering if there was any offensive writing on his shirt. Finding none, he looked confused at the guy and said, "What do you mean? Why not?"

"This is a nude beach, bro," he replied, spiking the beach ball back over to his group of friends.

"Oh, right," Mark said. Then he did a double-take. The man wasn't wearing anything. In fact, no one on this beach was wearing anything! Wait…..did he just say "nude beach"?? Mark's jaw went slack as he gawked at the shameless people walking around. Not a farmer's tan, or even a tan line in sight!

Out of instinct, knowing that he didn't belong with this crowd, Mark began to retreat. However, upon seeing a cute and mighty voluptuous brunette, beckoning him and wearing nothing but a stunning smile, Mark couldn't help but tear off his clothes and go running off to introduce himself.

--

After telling her riveting tale about the bikini contest to a virtually uninterested Roger and Mimi, Maureen announced that the time for her free banquet was fast approaching and they needed to go get ready. "Where's Mark?" she wondered, not seeing him anywhere. "Is he already up in the room?"

"No, he just went looking for you guys down on the beach," Roger replied. He and Mimi got out of the pool and began to dry off.

"Huh, guess we just missed him," Joanne said.

"Do you think we should go find him?" Mimi asked.

"No, I'm sure when he doesn't see us, he'll realize we've left and come back up to the hotel," Maureen said. "It takes him the least time to get ready anyway. Let's go on to the room."

--

Angel, with one of Collins' arms wrapped over her shoulders, carefully helped the man up to the room. "Here we are," she said, unlocking the door and leading him inside. She gently laid him onto the bed and went about finding some ice for his head. "Are you feeling any better?"

"Yeah, a little," Collins answered, placing his hand against the spot.

"Here you go," she said, handing him a plastic baggie full of ice.

"Thanks, love," Collins said, smiling and applying the ice to his bruising face.

--

Half an hour later, everyone was ready to go to the buffet, except Mark who still wasn't back. "Let's just leave a note on the door telling him where we are," Roger said. "He's probably….in the arcade or something. We've gotta leave so we can get back. Heaven forbid we should be late for Margo…."

Angel was wired and bouncing off the walls with anticipation. "He's right! Even if we missed the first _second _of the lecture—even if we missed the second _before_ the first second, I would die."

"All right," Maureen said. She was wearing a black, flirty party dress and was ready for the banquet celebrating her bikini prowess. She scribbled a note to Mark and stuck it to the door, then led the others out to the hotel's party room.

--

There was a ton of food and an open bar in the room, which was both exciting and disturbing, regarding the possible outcomes of the evening. Maureen had gotten up on a platform and given a speech about how lucky she was to be able to accept her award, although only her friends who had already heard about her victory were present. Joanne finally coaxed her off the "stage" when she reminded her of all the vegetarian food (at Maureen's request) that was waiting for them. Joanne, who hadn't eaten lunch for obvious reasons, was really starving.

"Ooh, yummy," Mimi said, picking up a spring roll and putting it on her plate.

"None of those soyballs," Roger said, looking around. "Nobody better put those on my plate."

"Nobody's putting anything on your plate, Roger," Mimi said, rolling her eyes.

"Good, because those things are nasty," he said, narrowing his eyes at Collins, who had a great affection for them.

Collins maturely stuck out his tongue at the guitarist, who in turn threw a baked potato at him. It hit Collins on his bruise and he cried out in agony. "That's it, Roger, you're dead, man!" he promised. He looked around for something to throw back at him, but Angel grabbed his arm and gave him a sternish look.

Mimi stared at Roger, disapprovingly. "Real mature, Rog," she said, shoving him slightly.

Roger, clearly not expecting this, fell into the buffet, knocking the table on its side and spilling all the food.

Four people shouted "ROGER!" and the fifth, Joanne, began to cry at not having a chance to get anything in her belly.

"The soyballs are still okay," Angel pointed at. They all looked to the perfectly preserved bowl of meatless meatballs.

--

Roger had gone to the room to change out of his food-covered clothing. The others all sat at a table, centered around the bowl of soyballs, which was thankfully big enough to satisfy all their appetites.

"Oh my god! Only an hour and a half until the lecture!" Angel crowed. She was visibly shaking with excitement. "I can't believe it's here! I can't believe that finally after all this waiting, I'm getting to meet THE Margo Fletcher, designer extraordinaire! I'm so excited, I think I'm going to explode! I mean, can you believe—"

"Angel!" Mimi snapped, then softened her tone. "Sweetie, you're a little overbearing right now. You don't want Margo to think you're a spazz, do you?"

Angel thought about that, and still shaking, said, "Well…no…."

"Why don't you have a drink?" Collins suggested. "Maybe it'll help calm you down." They were all very tired of Angel's rapturous state.

"They have pineapple daiquiris," Maureen mentioned.

"Ooh, my fave!" Angel exclaimed, calling the waiter over. He obliged in getting the drag queen a daiquiri and Mimi motioned for him to keep them coming. This spelled the end of Angel's sanity.

--

A few minutes later, a clean and very distraught-looking Roger reappeared, shaking his head. The group looked up to stare at him and he said, "I found Mark." He looked toward the door with a sympathizing sigh. "Brace yourselves, he's going to make an announcement.

They all looked at the door in anticipation, except for Angel who was feeling very loose after her third daiquiri, going on the fourth. Mark appeared in the doorway. No one gasped. No one said a word. No one did anything, even though he was standing there, stark naked. "I have decided to become a nudist!" he proclaimed, as if telling them he had just been elected president. "Now, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to leave you for my new nudist friends! So long, love you guys! Love, peace, enjoy your feast!"

Roger and Collins excused themselves to go have an intervention.

"That was scary," Joanne said, breaking the stunned silence.

"The farmer's tan or the nakedness altogether?" Maureen asked.

"The entire last fifteen seconds of my life," Joanne replied.

"Woo-hoo!" Angel squealed, tossing her jacket aside and downing her whole cup of pineapple and alcohol. "Mark looked sexy tonight, didn't he?"

Mimi took an inventory of all the empty daiquiri cups in front of Angel. "I'm cutting you off, honey," she said

"No way!" Angel yelled. She hopped upon the table, despite her friends' objections. "I'm just getting started!" She began to do a dance that only a very drunk of very fearless person would do on a table. Mimi, Joanne and Maureen tried to grab her and pull her back to the floor, but she danced out of their reach, giggling with mirth. After a little while, Angel got down on her own terms, running over to the bar and grabbed the whole daiquiri bottle and began chugging it.

Mimi wrestled the bottle from her grasp and began to scold her. "Angel, you're going to wind up out cold and you won't be able to see Margo."

Angel gasped, remembering the speech. "Oh, no, I've gotta loosen up so I can meet the Margo!" She grabbed the bottle back from Mimi and drank some more.

"Hey, you know where you can get really loose?" Maureen said, her eyes wide, trying to trick the very intoxicated Angel.

"Where?" Angel wondered, looking around.

"In the hotel room!" Maureen exclaimed.

"Is that where sexy Markie is?" Angel asked.

"You bet it is!" Mimi replied, chiming in.

Angel thought it over and said, "Let's go……to our room. That one that's up there." She actually pointed down, but the others got the message. Angel began staggering toward the exit, still holding onto the bottle of alcohol. "Whoops, better leave this here," she said, giggling, as she dropped the alcohol bottle, which broke into a hundred pieces.

Mimi grimaced and helped lead Angel around the glass, hoping her drunk friend wouldn't fall in it. "Come on, honey, let's go upstairs," she said, as Maureen flanked Angel's other side. Joanne brought up the rear in case one or all three of them fell backwards.

"I can't go upstairs," Angel said, simply.

"Why not?" Maureen asked.

Angel giggled. "I am very drunk….." she said profoundly.

--

At noon the next morning, six bohemians, including Jeff the lobster in the cooler and Mark, who had been talked out of his nudist fling, were packed and ready to go, dreading the moment Angel woke with a hangover and a very angry temper. They watched tensely as she sat up slowly, groaning with a stiffness like only the previous night could give. "Shit…." she muttered, looking up at Collins. "What happened?"

Collins glanced vaguely at her. "Maybe it's better if you don't remember," he said. "Come on," he helped her out of bed, "we have to get going."

They all breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if she forgot about missing the hat lecture, she wouldn't kill them. They were almost out the door when she yelled, "THE HATS!!!!! I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU, YOU BASTARDS!!!!!" The other six all ran away as Angel chased them. Passersby would swear they saw flames shooting out of her mouth.

--

NoV: Yahoo! All done with story number two! YAI!!!


End file.
